DAP Parliamentary Leader Lim Kit Siang today took Foreign Minister Anifah Aman’s name off the list of potential Prime Minister candidates in the proposed “Save Malaysia” coalition comprising leaders from both sides of the political divide.

“I can remove Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman’s name from the list of Prime Ministerial possibilities in a new post-BN, post-PR coalition in Putrajaya if he thinks that a Sabahan is not qualified to be a Prime Minister in Malaysia or he is not committed to constitutionalism and the Malaysia Agreement 1963 on hudud not suitable for a multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-cultural nation like Malaysia,” said Lim today.

Lim had recently floated the idea of a newly formed coalition made up of leaders keen on upholding the federal constitution – including leaders from Barisan Nasional. He had also suggested potential Prime Minister candidates, among them Anifah.

Responding to the idea, Anifah who is also an UMNO Supreme Council member from Sabah, commented that he was “happy” that Lim himself was not part of that proposed list. He alleged that no opposition leaders were in Lim’s list, concluding that there are many Barisan Nasional leaders who are up for the task.

Following Anifah’s response, Lim said that he had in fact suggested three Parti Keadilan Rakyat leaders for Prime Minister along with BN candidates, namely Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar, Selangor MB Azmin Ali, and Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli.

“It is a pity that Anifah has followed others in Barisan Nasional in demonstrating superficial understanding of my proposal, as he probably suffers from the same disease as other BN leaders – lazy to read and not really understanding what is being discussed and proposed,” said Lim.

Lim said that Malaysian politicians need to move beyond the current political scenario dominated by two political coalitions into a post BN, post PR “new phase” of the nation’s politics.

Lim had previously proposed the new coalition idea, in the event that Prime Minister Najib Razak declares his support for hudud law. To date, Najib’s stand regarding hudud remains unknown.

-The Rocket